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A SERMON 



PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, 
ON THE SUNDAY (OCTOBER 8, 1866) FOL- 
LOWING UPON THE DECEASE OF 
MARIA S. CUMMINS. 



NATHANIEL HALL. 



PRINTED FOR PRIVATE DISTRIBUTION. 



CAMBRIDGE: 

^^rititcti at t{)c ilitoct^itie ^tt$^. 

1866, 



T6 \k1 " 



IN EXCHANGE 

N. E. Hist. Genl. 3oc 



TO 
THE MOURNING, BUT BLESSED 

MOTHER 

OF SO DEAR A CHILD, 

®i)is Imperfect tribute 

'PO. HER MEMORt, 

IS, 

WITH MINGLED SYMPATHY AND GRATULATION, 
RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. 



SERMON 



*' I have glorified thee on the earth : I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with 
thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world 
was." — John xvii. 4, 5. 

I TAKE this passage for a brief presentation of 
those points in it of practical significance to us. 
Its bearing upon points in controversy touching 
Christ's existence in time I care not to discuss; 
the conclusion about which, whatever it be, affect- 
ing not the practicalness and worth of those higher 
teachings. " I have glorified thee on earth," said 
Jesus, addressing the Father in that prayer which 
was the touching prelude to his agony and death. 
How had he glorified Him ? Simply, he must have 
meant — simply and essentially — by his life of 
self-devoting faithfulness to the Father's will. The 
glory was not in the nature of the work, as differ- 
enced from that of others, but rather in the spirit 
with which it was accomplished. And thus we, 
too, may glorify God, may glorify Him on the 
earth. We need not wait until we reach the 
spheres beyond. Nay ; for by glorifying Him here 



8 SERMON. 

comes alone the fitness for glorifying Him there, as 
for being glorified by Him. We cannot so wait, if 
there be within us any breathings of the true life. 
Our aim would be to glorify Him wherever he 
places us, in whatever He ordains for us to do or 
to endure. And earth would be loved, and life 
upon it prized, if for nothing else — and for what- 
ever else for this chiefly — as affording field and 
opportunity whereby to glorify Him. Every thing 
glorifies its Maker that fulfills the uses He designed 
it for : from the sun that shines above us, to the 
simplest flower that opens to its beams. These 
from a fixed necessity \ man by a self commanding 
will. There is no glory like that of an intelligent, 
rational being choosing the way of Duty ; putting 
and holding his free will in harmonious relations 
with the will divine. There is nothing so sublime 
beneath the stars, nothing in all his works God 
so loves to look upon, as a human spirit that has 
consecrated itself to a following of the Heavenly 
Will ; that recognizes, and is faithful to, each 
moral and spiritual obligation ; as true to the 
Divine attraction as the needle to the pole, and 
if momentarily disturbed and drawn aside by 
counter-influences, returning — how soon ! — to its 
fidelity. How sad the fact that so few compara- 
tively are thus faithful ! When we think of our- 
selves as born of the Infinite, with a mind to ap- 
prehend Him, a heart to love Him, a power to 
glorify Him, by a freely surrendered will, — how 



SERMON. 9 

sad that so many yield themselves to the good 
and gods of earth, and choose to be false at once 
to Hhn and to themselves ! But there are those 
who glorify God upon the earth by true and fliith- 
ful lives. God be thanked for such ! If it were 
only to show us the divine possibilities of our 
nature ; how beautiful we might make our lives ; 
what a savor of holiness we might diffuse around 
us while we live, and leave with our memories 
when we die; what hghts, what guides, what 
blessings above all other blessings, we might be, 
to the hearts that beat closest to our own, and to 
other hearts, in ever-widening circuit. 

Jesus, in the passage before us, speaks, also, of 
a glory to come, of which, in leaving the world, 
he should be a recipient from the Father. What 
conceptions were in that holy soul when he thus 
spake, and what the fact in which they found ful- 
fillment, we may not know. But whatever the 
glory to which, for his faithfulness, he was admit- 
ted, that, measurably, his followers, in a kindred 
faithfulness, must surely share. '' Father, I will," 
he prayed, "that they also whom Thou hast 
given me be with me where I am." " It doth not 
yet appear what we shall be," said that dearest of 
them all, " but we know that we shall be like him, 
for we shall see him as he is." " Eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things which God hath prepared 
for them that love Him." Enough, that they are — 



10 SERMON. 

those blissful awaitings ; that they shall be in 
accord with the soul's highest life, and answer to 
its purest aspirations. Yes, they are. It caanot 
be a delusion. The very hope of them, in each be- 
liever's breast — God implanted, God nurtured — 
is itself a pledge of their realization ; that hope in 
which he struggles on after his Master's footsteps, 
brightening as he nears Him; that hope which, 
having given their purest gladness to his prosper- 
ous hours, becomes a star of holiest cheer above 
his dark and troubled ones ; and goes down with 
him, warming and brightening at each descending 
step, until the gate is reached that opens upward 
to the spirit realm. A delusion! Then is there 
nothing certain ! Then are we living among vis- 
ions and deceits ! If the Record of Faith be not a 
fraud; nay, if these hearts within us do not throb 
to a splendid falsehood ; — there is a glory to be 
revealed; there is a heaven for the faithful ; there 
is a fellowship of the blessed ; there is a sphere of 
loving service, of immortal progress, of divine be- 
atitude. Friends, let us feel the holy incitement of 
this faith, as we go forward in the work given us 
to do ! Let us feel its holy cheer, as from time to 
time — how often! — there go from us by death 
the dear and good ! as even now — 

" Another hand Is beckoning us, 
Another call is given ; 
And glows once more with angel steps 
The path that leads to Heaven." 



SERMON. 11 

You know to whom I refer. I need not name 
her. You have come here this morning with 
hearts at once in sympathy with a bereaved house- 
hold, and in sorrow for a loss we have all sus- 
tained. I would speak of her. And yet I hesitate. 
I always hesitate to speak in eulogy here. You 
will bear me witness it is not my wont. But 
never to do it, I cannot, as a rule, adopt. It 
were to deny myself a privilege and you a good. 
I will follow in this the promptings of my heart 
and the decisions of my judgment. I do so now. 
She was one of us, — a worshiper with us, a 
communicant, — from time to time, as circum- 
stances permitted, a teacher in our Sunday-school ; 
many of you were among her personal friends ; 
many, not so far privileged, have had pleasure in 
merely beholding, as she came and sat and went, 
the placid and spiritual beauty of her counte- 
nance; while far and wide, throughout the land, 
are those who have found delight and profit in her 
mental creations, — aye, and beyond it, — for she 
had won a reputation more than national. I ivill 
speak of her. We shall see her no more. All that 
was mortal of her the grave covers. I will speak 
of that in her which the grave cannot cover. 

She had gifts of intellect, beautiful and rare ; 
a refinement of thought, a delicacy of perception, 
a clearness of apprehension, a felicity of diction, a 
purity of taste, a liveliness of imagination ; — a 
harmony of faculties, a symmetrical proportionate- 



12 SERMON. 

ness, rather than a prominence of any single one, 
gaining for the individual the repute of " genius," 
and far less, in itself, for possession or use, to be 
coveted. But I would speak of that in her far 
more and greater than these — than all ~ gifts of 
intellect. These gave not her life its charmful 
beauty, nor to her death its touching pathos. It 
was the morally lovely in her Avhich claims here 
our notice ; the graces of character and disposi- 
tion ; that inner life of sentiment and faith and 
affection and devotedness ; that which led her to 
lay endowment and acquisition, in a true consecra- 
tion, on the altar of Truth, of Humanity, of Relig- 
ion. Doubtless, her moral qualities were in a 
large measure gifts — a natural unfolding of the 
God-given germ ; — that sweetness of spirit which 
won all hearts; that genialness and gentleness, 
that inward repose, that generous sympathy, that 
charity-tempered judgment, that warm aifection- 
ateness, which made the hour of her presence re- 
membered as a privileged hour. Like some wood- 
land flower, of choicest tint and symmetry and fra- 
grance, which the very heavens seem to love as 
they look down upon, while the light that falls 
upon it borrows new brightness by the contact, 
and the winds that sw^ay it impart thereby an 
added grace, — so she was, — a spirit-flower, — 
transplanted all too soon for our hearts and needs ; 
but not too soon to bear with it, to the Father of 
spirits, our gratitude for its gift ; while its memory 



SERMON. 13 

lingers in the heart's embalmment, and faith be- 
holds it putting on fairer, and ever fairer, loveli- 
ness, in the celestial gardens. 

But not alone the gift of nature was that which 
we admired and loved in her, -— the spontaneous 
flowering of an implanted germ, with no conscious- 
ness of earnest effort and struggling aspiration in 
its expanding life. Then, though admiration and 
love there still had been, they could not have been 
heightened and hallowed by moral esteem. It was 
not gift alone, but culture of gift; nor gift nor 
culture alone, but a consecration of all, and the 
whole being, to Duty and the Will Divine. 

How unassumingly she wore the crown of her 
endowments ! How modestly that wreath of the 
great public's praise which their achievements 
won ! There was none of the littleness of egotistic 
display ; no self elation at accorded honors, no rest- 
less coveting of more. There was a child-like sim- 
plicity, that seemed almost as unconscious of fjime 
as the blossom, exhibited for its rareness, of its 
circle of admiring eyes. It proved the elevation 
and pureness of her aim, — her reception of the 
success, so remarkable, which attended her earliest 
work ; more remarkable then than now, when sim- 
ilar success — but not greater, I think, as indi- 
cated by largeness of demand — has come to be 
achieved. Never before, I suppose, did a writer 
among us, if anywhere, flame into such sudden 
popularity — a popularity calling for edition upon 



14 SERMON. 

edition of her work. Though with all the suscep- 
tibilities of youthful womanhood, with what a 
chastened satisfaction she received it all ! — a sim- 
pie gladness, less that she was famous than that she 
might be useful ; less that she had gained the pub- 
lic's applause than that she had touched, to issues 
humane and philanthropic, the public's heart, 
and caused her poor " Lamplighter " to be the 
means of illumining other and direr darkness than 
that of night. 

There was a susceptibility in her nature to a 
deep enthusiasm, — not to speak of that which was 
inspired by the beautiful and sublime in nature 
and art, — an enthusiasm for whatever was moral- 
ly lovely and noble and heroic and self devoting. 
How it flamed in patriotism, during our country's 
trial-hour ! How her true heart turned, with gush- 
ing emotion, towards our country's brave and fallen 
defenders ! Why mention this, in which she was 
at one with millions ? Why, but to show, by an- 
other instance, how the peal of that great hour 
struck responsive chords in the finest-attuned nat- 
ures — proving, if proof were needed, its holiness. 

But I wish to speak more directly of her re- 
ligious nature, and its unfoldings in character. 
Crown as it is of all other excellence, reflecting 
on all a holier charm, so eminently was it with her. 
Her religion did not obtrude itself upon observa- 
tion. It was less seen than felt. It was an influ- 
ence, molding character, permeating the life, — a 



SERMON. 15 

secret force, ultimating in disposition and deed, 
as the sap of vegetation ultimates in bloom and 
fruit. It was genial as it was genuine. Doubtless, 
her nature modified the tone and character of it. 
It ivas nature, supplemented by grace. Hers was 
a natural religion ; not as distinguished from re- 
pealed — for the Bible was to her most precious ; 
her acquaintance with it uncommon ; her quota- 
tions from it most apt in the bearing as they were 
accurate in the letter of them — but natural, I 
mean, as opposed to a formal and technical relig- 
ion ; and, more than this, as being a development 
of nature, rather than an engraftment upon it; a 
lifting it upwards, through its perennial inspira- 
tions, where it meets those fuller currents which 
Faith and Prayer set aflow ; where passive ten- 
dency becomes earnest aim ; and spontaneity, law ; 
and the soul, led by a Saviour's hand, comes nearer 
to its Father; knows itself as his by a dearer 
knowledge ; and kneels, in lowly adoration, before 
the dawning vision of an Infinite Purity. There 
is so much religion that is unnatural ! It may be 
genuine and real, but there is that about it which 
savors of constraint, as if it were some foreign 
element induced upon the being, rather than an 
element native to it, springing up into everlasting 
life, finding its end, as is its origin, in God. Hers, 
I repeat, was a natural religion. It was not con- 
spicuous as a distinct existence, so that one might 
say, '^ Here it is," for it was everywhere ; like 



16 SERMON. 

the lamp set within a transparent vase — unseen, 
save as a diffused radiance, illumining the whole. 
It was with her in her labors and her recreations, 
in the sweetness of her smile and the genialness of 
her manner, in the tone of her conversation and 
the play of her fancy and the laugh of her merri- 
ment, in the chasteness of her thought and the 
breadth of her sympathies and the kindness of her 
judgments, — in these, no less than in the discus- 
sions, in which she so earnestly engaged, of sacred 
themes ; or when, meekly and reverently, she sat 
among us here, or drew near, in grateful remem- 
brance, around the emblems of a Saviour's self- 
sacrifice. I have alluded to her reverence for rev- 
elation. Though with a lively interest in the 
advanced religious thought of the age, and appre- 
ciative of its just conclusions, she had no sympa- 
thy with views which base themselves on the soul's 
intuitions and recognize as helps and guides of 
secondary importance the declarations of Chris- 
tianity. Nay ; never a Mary sat with more rever- 
ent teachableness at the Great Master's feet than 
she. In a sense most vital she was a disciple. She 
desired to be known as such. When she came 
among us she had been elsewhere a communicant, 
but had not joined a Church. She expressed an 
earnest wish to do the latter, in the feeling that 
she owed it to Christ and His cause in the world 
to avow publicly her faith in Him, to express form- 
ally her discipleship. Her views were rational and 



SERMON. 17 

liberal. She held, with heartiest faith, the simple 
truths which find expression here. She had 
searched, as few do, to know tlieir foundations in 
Scripture and Eeason ; and though some of her 
dearest friends were of other communions, she 
stood, with broadest charity, immovably within her 
own. 

The power of her religion was tested in those 
seasons of bodily exhaustion, alternating with par- 
tial renovation, which in the few last years were 
her experience. "I thank you sincerely," she 
writes, "for your blessing upon my past labors, and 
your prayer for my continued strength to use such 
means of usefulness as God has given me. The 
gifts to which you allude (such as they are) must 
lie fallow for a long time. I fully realize that it is 
better so, on every account. I pray now for the 
greater gifts of patience and perfect submission to 
the heavenly will, and for the strength which is 
* made perfect in weakness.' " But a more fearful 
test awaited her in those months of intensest and 
hardly intermitted suffering, which closed her life. 
And still — as her prayer was — her faith failed 
not, nor her patience, nor her submission. He who 
had permitted her burden made her equal to it. 
Not alone with the ministries, tender and devoted, 
of a human affection, did she tread that painful, 
weary way ; a Father's hand, a Father's love, 
were there. What blessed angels, too, with love- 
commissioned watch, were there, we may not 



18 SERMON. 

know, — as she does now. But that He was there, 
whom that famOiar Psalm expresses, — fondly re- 
peated by her in those closing hours, — " The ]^ord 
is my Shepherd," that He Avas there, it needs no 
revelations of the heavenly world to assure us. 
Truly might she have said, as the end drew near, 
with a humble but blessed trust, looking up to that 
great "Shepherd of souls," — "I have glorified 
thee on the earth ; I have finished the work thou 
gavest me to do." And well may she have looked 
to that glory beyond — as humbly she did — re- 
peating, with faith's tranquil smile, those words of 
fathomless import, — " Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man. 
the things which God hath prepared for them that 
love Him." 

But enough ; too much, it may be, for the hearts 
of that afflicted, yet blessed home. They will for- 
give me, if it be so ; if, in my desire to bring in- 
struction and incitement from that vanished life, I 
have drawn aside too freely the curtain of that 
sacred privacy. If I have touched, by so doing, 
one heart to holy issues ; if I have done aught to 
make that blessed life the more a blessing to a 
single soul, I know they will forgive me. 

Friends, we have all our lesser gifts. Why 
not consecrate them, as she did hers — all we have 
and all we are — to Truth, to Duty, to Humanity, 
to God ? Why not welcome, now — now for al- 
ways — His sway, whose we are, and who is In- 



SERMON. 19 

finite Wisdom, Goodness, Love ? — The leaves are 
fading around us. " We all do fade as the leaf" 
A few more revolving years, and that Autumn will 
have come which shall spread its tinted pall above 
our graves. Beyond these low skies and mortal 
decays, these beings that we are shall, fixdeless, 
live. Shallit not be with the faithful good? Shall 
it not be, God, with those, who, having glorified 
Thee on the earth, are admitted to those higher 
spheres of service and progress and beatitude? — 
Of Thy dear mercy grant it ! 



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